Diller: Aereo 'Finished' Without Supreme Court Victory

Less than three weeks ahead of Aereo's Supreme Court showdown, the online video startup is really starting to sweat.

Aereo backer Barry Diller, chairman and CEO at IAC, told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday (video below) that if the firm loses its case this month, it could be caput for Aereo.

"If we lose, we're finished," Diller said, mirroring CEO Chet Kanojia's recent comments that shuttering a service like Aereo would be "chilling."

The company manufactures tiny HDTV antennas and stores their captured content on remote servers; users can record shows without the hassle of purchasing or installing any equipment.

In 2012, however, Aereo was sued by Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Television, Univision, PBS, and two local New York stations for rebroadcasting TV without permission. A second suit was filed by ABC, Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal, Universal Network Television, and Telemundo.

"It's very possible that there's some salvage," Diller told Bloomberg. "But Aereo would probablyI say probably just because I can't see any path for itit probably would not be able to continue in business."

When pressed about what, if any, future the company might have, Diller said it could crawl back on its hands and knees and pay retransmission consent fees"if we could make a deal with broadcasters."

Stephanie began as a PCMag reporter in May 2012. She moved to New York City from Frederick, Md., where she worked for four years as a multimedia reporter at the second-largest daily newspaper in Maryland. She interned at Baltimore magazine and graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania (in the town of Indiana, in the state of Pennsylvania) with a degree in journalism and mass communications.
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